The streets were so narrow in the provincial
towns, and even in Paris, that robbers could jump from the roofs on
one side to those on the other. This perilous occupation was long the
amusement of King Charles IX. in his youth, if we may believe the
memoirs of his day.
Fearing to present himself too late to the old silversmith, the young
nobleman now went up to the door of the Malemaison intending to knock,
when, on looking at it, his attention was excited by a sort of vision,
which the writers of those days would have called "cornue,"--perhaps
with reference to horns and hoofs. He rubbed his eyes to clear his
sight, and a thousand diverse sentiments passed through his mind at
the spectacle before him. On each side of the door was a face framed
in a species of loophole. At first he took these two faces for
grotesque masks carved in stone, so angular, distorted, projecting,
motionless, discolored were they; but the cold air and the moonlight
presently enabled him to distinguish the faint white mist which living
breath sent from two purplish noses; then he saw in each hollow face,
beneath the shadow of the eyebrows, two eyes of porcelain blue casting
clear fire, like those of a wolf crouching in the brushwood as it
hears the baying of the hounds.
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